A colorful and engrossing thriller set in Australia and the Philippines.
A sequel chronicles the continuing adventures of two Australian intelligence officers in the postwar Pacific.
After their counterespionage duties in North Africa and subsequent work back in Australia to bring a murderous gang to justice, white officer Jamie Munro and his partner, the excellent tracker of half-Aboriginal descent Jacko O’Brien, are hoping that the remainder of their time with the Commonwealth Investigation Service will be a little quieter. Not so. When reports of a stranded ship reach them during Christmas lunch at the Hotel Darwin, the duo goes out to lend a hand. Approaching the storm-tossed ship, Jamie spots something in the waves: “As they came alongside the object, it appeared to be a small human body. They hauled the body into the cutter using a gaff and saw that it was indeed the body of a small boy.” Even more disturbingly, another child is found in the hull of the ship, this one alive but very scared. It seems that the vessel is trafficking children, though for what purpose Jamie and Jacko must investigate. The case brings them to the Philippines, where the destruction wrought by World War II has left thousands of orphans easy prey for predators and kidnappers. In their quest to find out who is buying these children, the CIS officers will probe deeper than perhaps is wise—especially when it provokes the kidnappers into taking one of their own. In this second installment of a trilogy, Kater’s (The Warramunga’s War, 2018) prose is reliably sharp and gripping, particularly when describing the devastation of the war: “They drew closer to the port area, where most of the buildings had been reduced to rubble and were covered in weeds, while those still standing were empty and badly damaged. The ground was heavily potholed and most trees seemed to have been cut to shreds.” This work feels more confident than the author’s previous Warramunga effort, and hews more closely to a traditional plot structure. The milieu is captivating and the characters are likable, which, when coupled with a perfectly serviceable crime story involving a shadowy syndicate, make for a pleasing bit of escapism.
A colorful and engrossing thriller set in Australia and the Philippines.Pub Date: June 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-648-27801-6
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Zeus Publications
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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